which is basically me drawing my life!

Really crappy, because I am not an artist.

I thought it would be really cool if I shared with you guys my story, so let's get started.

So my name is Joseph Michael Graceffa

and I was born May 16th 1991

and I remember I hated my name growing up,

I think I had my parents call me Cody for a week,

but I hate it, so I made them call me Joey again.

When I was brought into this world, my family consisted of my dad, my mom, and my sister Nicole, who is five years older than me,

and then of course me!

When I was really young my parents got divorced

so ... it didn't really affect me because I didn't really know of anything else.

So, it was just me, my mom, and my sister for the majority of the beginning of my life

and my mom was the most loving mom I could ask for.

I remember she put me on her hip and we danced around the living room listening to music.

I was such a mama's boy, like whenever my mom would go out at night and she wouldn't come home till late

the babysitter would have to give me her picture for me to be able to fall asleep,

so, yep! Mama's boy alert!

My, my sister and mom lived in a really old apartment complex growing up

and some paint chips had fallen off the window and got on my toys

and me being the child I was decided to eat the chips

and it gave me a lead poisoning which ended up causing me to have a learning disability

and I spent most of my school life in special education classes.

I lived just with my mom and my sister for a few years

I just looked up to my sister so much, she was my role model

and she was the coolest person ever and I wanted to be just like her

so I would do what she would do, like wear dresses and play with dolls,

but this ended up getting me teased a lot by my cousins and they called me "Josephina"

which really hurt my feelings.

I also had a pretty tough time at school

I mostly only hung out with girls because it's who I felt most comfortable

and a lot of guys would make fun of me, call me "gay"or "faggot", or call me a girl

and this made it really hard for me to make friends with guys for most of my life

because I just figured that they are all mean.

When I was five years old, my mom met my step-dad Bob who I actually called "the Chinese man"

because he would always bring over Chinese food for dinner, even though he wasn't Chinese.

But he became one of my biggest role models and taught me that anything in life is possible as long as I work hard enough.

When I was seven years old I actually fell of my bunk bed and cracked my head open

because I was trying to bring my two little kittens to the top bunk in a blanket

and I dropped the blanket on the way up

and in attempt to save them, I fell off the top bunk and landed on my head, on a bird house that I created.

I just remember reaching up and feeling the blood come on my head and I started screaming

and my parents rushed me to the hospital and I got five staples in my head

and for me being a good boy I got two Pokémon booster packs and one of them actually had a Charizard in it

so, yeah, I know. It's a really good Charizard, isn't it? [laughs]

But I guess it was worth getting my head cracked open, right?

No, it freakin' hurt.

At 12 years old, my mom started heavily drinking and soon became an alcoholic.

which was really hard growing up because I didn't feel like I had a mom that I could rely on.

My mom and my step dad's relationship wasn't doing that well and they decided to separate

so they sold the house and once again it was just me, my sister and my mom,

and my sister and my mom got into some pretty heated arguments on almost every single day

because my mom was drinking

so my sister decided to move out and live with my dad.

My dad was definitely very hard on me growing up,

he didn't like that my only friends were girls and he wanted me to be more of a masculine son

but when I got into 8th grade I think he just gave up and finally accepted my for who I was

and he's also my biggest fan now and I can tell that he is very proud of me.

In 8th grade, I wanted to become an actor, so I auditioned for my high school play

and I actually ended up getting the lead role

and this was definitely one of my favorite memories of high school.

When I was 15, my mom and step dad's relationship started getting better and my step dad moved in

and my mom sobered up for two years.

And then they had a baby named Jed and I was super excited because I'd always wanted a younger sibling

that I could boss around and tell them what to do.

But as time progressed, he was diagnosed with a form of autism

which meant that he wasn't able to communicate with us verbally

which of course has been really hard because I know he would say some of the craziest and funniest things

In my first year of high school I met a girl named Britney Joel

and we became best friends immediately

we just had so much fun together and we clicked so well.

We would hang out every single weekend and play video games

and we would annoy the crap out of people on Call of Duty Xbox LIVE

because we would sing Aly & AJ and Jonas Brothers' songs

and we called ourselves DJ Joey and DJ Britney. People hated us.

At 16 years old, we decided to start a YouTube channel called WinterSpringPro and just made little sketches

and tried to build up an audience, and it eventually started taking off

and after a few months we became YouTube Partners,

which meant that we could start making money on our videos.

College time came around and I really wanted to major in film,

so I applied to my dream school Emerson and ... was denied.

I was so heartbroken but I ended up going to the stupid crusty state school

and I was so miserable. I became very lonely and the most depressed I think I've ever been in my life.

But I found my comfort in YouTube and the majority of my friends were online friends.

So I decided to drop out of college.

When I turned 19, I decided to move to L.A. and follow my dream of being an actor and

and make YouTube a full-time job, also to escape my mother who had now been drinking heavily again.

So Britney and I packed up her car and drove cross country from Boston to Los Angeles for four days straight.

When we arrived in L.A., we made a ton of YouTube friends and I immediately felt like I belonged in

I now have the best group of friends that I could ever ask for.

They all accept me for who I am and I don't feel like I have to be anyone but me.

After living in L.A. for a year, I decided to branch off from WinterSpringPro and start my Joey Graceffa channel.

and eventually made the decision to vlog every single day

I worked really hard and was really passionate about YouTube again

and I started getting recognition and had a really cool story that got me noticed by the TV show "The Amazing Race".

which has seriously been the coolest experience of my life.

Today I'm still making videos on a daily basis and trying to make my dreams of being an actor come true.

Although I went through a lot of struggles in my life growing up,

it's made me into the person I am today.

I know that this is just the beginning of an even more epic journey ahead of me

and I want to thank you guys so much for supporting me

and if there's anything that I want you guys to take from this video

it's that you don't have to be a victim of your environment

and just know that life gets so much better

and you can truly achieve anything in life as long as you work hard enough.

So yeah, keep your head up and no dream is too crazy!

So, yeah, I love you guys, thank you so much for supporting me

and I will see you guys tomorrow!

May the odds be ever in your favor!

Good bye!

Anyways, headed to Target,

gonna get that whiteboard, probably some other stuff

and I'm gonna make this draw my life video, I already scripted it all out

just the drawing which I'm a little worried about

because I am not the best artist